Tag Archives: Puget Sound Grand Banks Owners Association

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My last post showed the sad state of the flares we had in our dinghy. Moisture took its toll.

We keep the most recent, expired set of flares in the dinghy. The newest non-expired, legal set are in the big boat (for any CG folks that might be reading). This time I got smart (I think) and vacuum packed the flares before I put them in the dinghy.Continue reading →

Last year, we bought new motor mounts from Poly Flex. I wrote about that here. It was a project for this winter. Time to get to it. I mustered the courage and conned my friend Bruce into helping me out. I figured he was good for all the hard stuff. Sooner or later he is going to get wise to me. I have to get as much work out of him as I can before he does.

I spent some quality time working on the starboard door a while ago. That post is here.

I took advantage of the good weather last weekend and got the port door done also. This door was quite a bit easier. Just a bit of sanding and spraying on the outside, and a quick wipe with polyurethane on the inside.

Now that we are all caught up with what has been going on, I want to close the loop on a few recent posts …

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We installed trim tabs on our dinghy earlier this year. Since then, we’ve used it for short trips and a few longer cruises. Do I think it is an improvement? I don’t know. It is a nice stable ride and it planes easily. But, the trim tabs sort of turn a sporty car into a station wagon. And it is slower. We lose about 4 knots of speed. And I like speed in a dinghy.

This is going to be a long post about an exciting subject. Fortunately, I included lots of photos so it shouldn’t be too painful.

The starboard door developed a crack in the wood right on the edge by the lock. It’s been this way for about a year. This was the first chance I’ve had to tackle the problem and fix it for good. At least I hope I fixed it for good. You can see in this photo near the lock that the paint was failing. I knew that I would have to take it all off and repaint the door. And of course, then I would have to strip and varnish the trim around the window. That’s why I had to wait until I had a few weekends available. It was not a hard project, but waiting between coats of CPES, primer, paint, and varnish meant it would take some time to complete.

Disclaimer: I try to do the best job I can when it comes to boat projects. I don’t always know what I am doing, though. Since that doesn’t stop me, consider my efforts suspect until validated by a competent authority.